Hopeless
by Acey Dearest
Summary: Kuwabara might not be simply the idiot he is often portrayed as. Maybe there's more to him than most think. Take a look... you might be surprised. Oneshot. Complete.


"Hopeless" by Acey  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own much. Not even this computer, much less Yu-Yu Hakusho.  
  
Kazume Kuwabara got out of bed, going ahead and leaving the quilted covers where they lay in rumpled heaps. He showered, put on a school uniform, not bothering to dry his hair. It would dry on its own eventually.   
'I have Urameshi beat in one thing; I can come to school wearing a uniform,' he thought, chuckling slightly. Urameshi, his old rival, one of about fifty he was known to fight with. But that particular rivalry was a constant. There was practically a tradition to it. He would start in, Urameshi, normally ticked already at something or someone else, would lazily finish him off. Easily, possibly with a "try again next time, Kuwabara." And he had. He had tried the next time, and the next time, and the time after that, until the few friends he had stopped keeping track of the win-lose record by his orders.   
They had told him to give it up, not just Urameshi but his own friends, telling him that it was pretty much pointless to try. Yet he had, and lost miserably every time, but losing with a vow for a rematch, which halfway redeemed the defeat in his mind.   
For Urameshi was his old enemy. His goal never was academic, or even athletic, glory. All he had wanted was to see the proud, arrogant look on the smart-aleck's face to disappear as he-- he, Kuwabara-- landed him flat on his face, gasping for breath. And he didn't want the renown that would have come with beating him. Just to see him downed from a punch he had given, and the knowledge that he had won, was all he had asked for.  
When Urameshi had died saving the little kid, he had lost his center. Kuwabara had come in on the mourners, come in although several of his school friends had tried to drag him away, crying, for the loss of the fight.Through death, a permanent loss by default, one that Kuwabara couldn't have ever changed. Urameshi had finally been defeated by a car going too fast in the bravest move of his life. Kuwabara would have infinitely prefered a thousand defeats than to have the rivalry end the way it had.  
Or thought it had, at least. Urameshi had returned, on a mission concerning demons that he had led an unwitting Kuwabara into, one that he was probably stuck with now. The company was far less than good, his rival, a guy with too-long hair and some kind of thing with plants, a short fire demon with three eyes, a pretty noncombatant blue-haired girl who was apparently the grim reaper. Urameshi had gotten out of the realm of the dead unscathed. He still had his girl when he came back, still had his title as the toughest kid in the school, and that arrogant, ever-present grin on his good-looking face.  
And Kuwabara had, after stumbling through the adventures alongside, his title as number two, the second-fiddle sidekick with less of a brain than the Scarecrow, and Yukina.  
Yukina was the only one who saw him for more than a blockhead. She still refered to him as Kazume, although so many people called him Kuwabara that he had nearly forgotten it. She seemed to find worth in him, more so than just as an idiot who could throw a punch decently and could sense spirits, a fact that made most people outside of Urameshi's little group think he was not only stupid but crazy as well. Yukina was beautiful. She had some intangible, childlike innocence about her that made him want to protect her, a sweet nature that he hadn't seen in anyone else. No one like that could ever have looked upon him with favor, not him, not Kuwabara. The completely hopeless romantic, the dumb one, the most outcasted of the outcast. His friends pitied him. Urameshi mocked him, and he would mock back in jest. Shizuru tolerated him as only an older and wiser in the ways of the world sister would, eyes rolling, a "my brother has got to be adopted" look plain on her face.   
But Yukina saw something behind the caricature surface. She looked at him and saw the stumblings, the foolishness, but also the caring behind. She recognized the sad attempt at chivalry as far better than anyone else's, because he tried for honor where the rest would not. He abided always by a code of virtuous conduct, regardless of how idiotic it seemed with him, regardless that had it been the code of another, better-looking, suave young man it would be looked upon with the dignity it deserved. Kuwabara stuck to it, and Yukina appeared to admire that.  
Perhaps, in retrospect, he was all that he seemed to be. Perhaps he was less than bright, more than unattractive, incredibly clumsy. Maybe he was hopeless in the world's cockeyed perspective. He would probably never make it as a professional fighter. Becoming a scholar was a no-go. There was always the possiblilty that Yukina's love for him might fade before his ever would.  
Kazume Kuwabara left the troublesome thoughts and headed out of his house, going for another day to the junior high school, another day without realizing that his heart was twice as big as his chest allowed it.  
  
finis 


End file.
